sellers thinning, page-50

Santoo, I never said "I expected" the underwriter to run away. I am more careful with my wording. I pointed out a clause in the underwriter agreement that had a backout clause that could be applied if the market fell by 10% or more, which it had, so I posed the qn as to whether the underwriter would support or not. Over the decades I have learnt that the back out clause is one of the first things to look at.


MANGANESE is the fourth-most used metal after iron ore, aluminium and copper and there is no substitute for it in the steel-making process. It is the third-most important raw material after iron ore and coking coal.

Manganese improves the tensile strength of steel and resistance to abrasion. It is also included in most welding materials for use with iron and steel.

About 10kg of manganese goes into each tonne of steel, and China alone is producing 700 million tonnes of steel a year.

Its poor price performance has been due to an overhanging stockpile of the metal, and prices have fallen by about 40 per cent on last year. But once the stockpiles are reduced, we can expect a good price hike, say insiders.

That is, of course, unless steel prices begin falling. There are some indications that Beijing's cutting back on bank lending could slash the growth in the country's steel consumption.